Taking Root
by TheWarriorQueen
Summary: Neville/Luna. Luna is hurting. Neville wants to heal her. Written for DCdreamer55. Oneshot. Complete.


**Neville/Luna. Luna is hurting. Neville wants to heal her. Written for DCdreamer55.**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, not mine. Otherwise the book canon would be Neville/Luna, not Luna with some Rolf guy we don't know!**

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She's been different, since the war. Different ever since she was locked up most of a year in Malfoy Manor. Not noticeable to many others, oh no, but he noticed it. She talks a lot, nowadays, of Blibbering Humdingers. And that is how he knows something is wrong.

You see, Blibbering Humdingers do not exist. Not even in her mind. And he wants to do something for her, something to wake her up from the act she has fallen so neatly into. Why? He loves her, Merlin damn it, he loves her with every fibre of his being, more than he loves his plants. He loves every inch of her, from the hair some call dirty-dishwater-blonde (how vile, he thinks, it should be called sun-bleached dandelion blonde), to her big pale-blue eyes like those little asters his Herbology book says are good for foot trouble, to her unfathomable smile that some call absent, but he thinks of as a whisper of the divine that he seeks amongst the trappings of nature.

And because he loves her, he is going to save her. He is going to save her, even though he is no classic hero. He no longer denies being a hero, not since she made him a berry-red shirt with olive-green writing on reading "I Killed The Dark Lord's Snake, Ask Me How." She said it was a Muggle phrase, and he wears it now with pride, not pride for his achievement, but pride that she would take the time to make him something.

But the days give way to weeks, and the weeks give way to months, and as the months give way to the third year since the war's end, he feels his heart breaking just a little more as he realizes she cannot heal. Not with time, and he doesn't know what to do. She is not a tree with snapped trunk, to be carefully knotted together by bandages and Sealing Spells. She is not a wilting flower, to be lovingly watered not too much and not too little. She is not his Mimbulus Mimbletonia, to be fed infusion of hellebore every gibbous moon. No, she is not a plant, to be cared for as the books say.

Somehow, however, his heart tells him she is like that tree, its support broken by lightning it could not avoid, she is like that flower, lacking the right amount of nurture to keep upright, she is like his Mimbulus Mimbletonia, needing that secret something that only those who truly try could know. His heart tells him she is like the plants he is so good with, and he is simply forgetting one simple rule. And then he remembers, once, being told in Herbology that his greatest gift with plants came from the fact that sometimes he broke the rules and followed his heart. And that heart pulses eagerly as he realizes what she needs, what bindings he can offer, what water to quench her thirst, what mysterious brew to restore her. He will cultivate a relationship, and in doing so, she will recover.

He goes to her, spreading his arms wide as an oak tree spreads its branches. And she enters that embrace and his arms become the secure bindings for her trauma. His fingers brush across her neck, her back, the same way he would stroke a wounded Tentacula. Her hair drifts around them, a halo in the sunlight, his confirmation of divinity. Gently, his lips plant themselves onto hers, and in that moment, her eyes so knowing, he feels that she is drawing strength from the contact, whilst her suffering is sapped from her. And maybe she is. As they move in that ancient dance oft associated with springtime, she quivers with release. And when he moves to that perfect closeness, her skin shines brighter than any infusion could make it.

They draw slightly apart, and he sees her smile blossom across her face. She leans on him, soft and pliant, but not wilted anymore. He can feel the deep-rooted power being pumped up through her body, sure as the blood racing through every vein and capillary, and he knows, with the Herbologist's infallible skill, that she will be alright.

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**Here's hoping I didn't kill you all with the plant imagery.**

**Luna says that if you review, you'll have no more Gracklinders for a week.**

**TheWarriorQueen**


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